The pioneer in the Genetic Genealogy field, Gene by Gene Ltd is operating the retail service as FamilyTreeDNA. Initially focused soley on and creating Y DNA testing, they have expanded both to deeper NGS and Autosomal and Mitochondrial DNA testing. Located in Houston, Texas they operate their own laboratory.

FamilyTreeDNA sells their products a-la-carte whereas most others have simplified, bundled products. The main products are defined here:

BigY: their newest product is an NGS test of the Ychromosome returning 25,000 to 75,000 SNP values. Used for deep, nearer term Haplogroup determination and to verify STR matches are not a result of converged values.

FamilyFinder: FTDNA’s answer to provide Autosomal testing that everyone jumped on earlier. They have the smallest database of testers out of all the companies so moving your results to GEDMatch is almost a requirement.

SNP Packs: a greatly expanded product line that can allow deeper yDNASNP testing without the expense of BigY. Useful when your STR values are matching another suspected patrilineal line relative and you simply need to confirm you are close to their BigY result. And much more cost and result effective then individual SNP value orders.

FamilyTreeDNA maintains two “public” search engines for mtDNASNP and yDNASTR results; named MitoSearch and ySearch (see links below). Users can upload their test results to compare against others from other companies. To date, the vast majority of uploads are from FamilyTreeDNA so the benefit of comparing off the FamilyTreeDNA match database is minimal. (Note: as of 2017, they are no longer maintaining the sites and many features do not work.)

FamilyTreeDNA pluses:

Stores DNA sample for 20+ years; can order tests not yet available in the future after ancestor has passed (oldest, still surviving member of the personal genetic testing field)

No real support for multiple kits managed by a single login (pseudo mechanism by creating a (yDNA) project just geared for your test kits and putting all your kits as members in the group; can give group administrator most functions but not all)